How to Not Choke When You Blog

Now that I'm back at Forbes, I'm trying to post a fair amount, but on Friday, I sort of choked. I'd written a post about a python pizza, and a post about porn on HBO, and then it was Friday, and I got stuck. I spent way too much time overthinking it: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Then on Sunday, I realized I needed to post anything, which actually prompted me to write the post that I originally wanted to write, which was about a work of art made of crack vials.

Be fucking specific

One thing that's sort of a challenge when you write about vice is that you can write about a lot of shit. You can write about: heroin, cam girls, internet gambling, a line of wine named for dead criminals, a gun show, pruno, DeLoreans, and all kind of other things. I spent too much time casting too wide of a net in the form of Google News, which sucks. When I wrote about things successfully, I realized, they tended to be about the intersection of two things: vice and something of particular interest to me. So, for example, I'm not that interested in pizza, but I am interested in Florida, so an Everglades pizza made sense. Be as stupidly specific as a PhD candidate in your endeavors. Niche your brain.

I think one problem was that I was focusing too much on what people would maybe want to read. This is an old bad habit that comes from having jobs that required heavy traffic-getting writing, and it can ruin you the way love can get ruined for an old whore. Also, Forbes has a somewhat different way of paying bloggers for traffic nowadays -- because that is how it works there -- and so far it's been ... well, I'll give it a positive slant by saying I'm sure I'll figure it out. But it's different. In any case, post what you love, and fuck everyone else. After all, most people are dumb.

Do shit, dumbshit

I wrote a nice post on my Forbes blog a couple years ago: "A Girl and a .22." It was fun to do and fun to write. I went to a firearms superstore with a big range and shot some guns. If you don't have to be a churn-and-burn blogger, why would you act like one? Use blogging as excuse to go live a more interesting life. For me, that's meant going to porn shows, and gun shows, and drinking expensive Bloody Marys. Find what you love, and then fuck the hell out of it. I'll be going on another adventure later this week that should be interesting. Stay tuned.

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